Tyrphanax

“April Fools, everyone, we’re releasing the OOT instead!”

Well, I’d been behind on the show for a few weeks because of finals, but I binge-watched the episodes I’d missed this evening.

The last episode I’d seen was Legend of the Lasaat, and it was meh. Wasn’t bad, but eh.

Then up next was hyperspace squidwhales… ugh. I was alright with it being just a lame filler episode about space animals, I mean, they did it in the Clone Wars with the nebula whale things, but then when they jumped to lightspeed at the end? Just awful, but whatever, the Clone Wars had plenty of Jar-Jar episodes and other filler. Whatever. I’ll just forget that one. The custom TIEs were neat, though.

The next episode was definite Clone Wars fanservice. Which I’m okay with. I knew this episode was coming as soon as I learned Hera’s last name, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Gobi and little Numa all grown up and wearing a reminder of Waxer and Boil in the old clone armour. Hera’s native accent coming through when she was upset was also interesting and cool. Freaking LOVED the Star Wars: Rebellion reference in the form of the light carrier they hijacked. I used to play Star Wars: Galaxies on the Flurry server, which was named after that ship from Rebellion, kinda hoping they name their new prize after my server. I love all these little nods, like the Interdictor and the B-Wing (which was designed by a Mon Cal named Quarrie, which was great).

After that was the Zeb/Kallus episode. A bit of a cliche storyline, but I enjoyed it. Kallus came across as a much more nuanced and interesting character, and it deepened him quite a bit, showing him to be an honourable soldier just doing his job. The end, with the juxtaposition of Zeb returning to his friends and Kallus returning injured to his cold room alone and ignored by his crew to think about the Empire makes me excited to see what they do with his character in the future.

The episodes were improving a lot as I continued, but I was not prepared for the next one. Wow. THIS is why this series is good.

Anakin’s training holocron was pretty cool, but there was so much more than that. Each of the three Jedi got personalized lessons: Kanan learning to let go (in the dojo from the Matrix) and his ascension, facilitated by a VERY unexpected party left me with so many questions; Ezra learning that being a Jedi is more complex than he thought from the (admittedly-poorly-designed) master himself; and Ahsoka dealing with turning away from the Order, but was she struggling internally, or was she actually speaking to her former master through the Force? I think she feels the good in Anakin and may try to reach him, and I think he may try to turn her as well. Her wave to Yoda at the end was heartbreaking, and Vader’s return means things are going to get real again.

KOTOR fans will rejoice again at the inclusion of Malachor. This episode is the beginning of an arc that I’m very excited to see the rest of.

I feel like they’re using their returning characters from The Clone Wars very judiciously, and I’m always excited to see them show up. I feel like maybe Kanan and Ezra use their lightsabers too much, but at this point they’re being hunted and everyone knows who they are anyway, so they might as well. I’m also surprised that we’re seeing Vader as often as we are. I was sure that we’d only get him for the premier and then he’d go away for a long time, but he actually stuck around a bit and is coming back again now that things are getting heavier. I feel like Lucasfilm is doing a great job keeping James Earl Jones and Frank Oz on retainer for voicework, and that really legitimizes everything and makes me very happy.

I was a bit worried having come back from a meh episode to another one, but the latest episode won me right back. A lot of people are saying it’s looking worse than The Clone Wars this season, but I think people are forgetting that The Clone Wars had some pretty fillery episodes between some really incredible spirit-of-Star-Wars episodes. Even in the later seasons we were still getting those Jar Jar episodes dropped on us for every amazing and gritty clone episode.

This is very sad news. I hope he was comfortable and happy. He seemed like a really nice guy.

Yeah, it’s always been there. I think it becomes more obvious each time you rewatch it.

Reading this thread and seeing people realize just how dreck some of the EU was brings me great joy.

Can you believe people wrote petitions and “Gave up on Star Wars” because they wiped out a universe where “Fat Dancer” is basically Luke’s best friend and the three-eyed son of Palpatine takes over the Empire? Ugh. I’m so glad it’s all gone.

Bingowings said:

Darth Lucas said:
…
Snoke on the other hand took me way out of the movie the CGI was so obvious.

I’m convinced that the fakeness of the holograph is deliberate for future narrative reasons.

This was my thought as well.

Beautiful work!

timdiggerm said:

TV's Frink said:

Lord Haseo said:

Tyrphanax said:

What is your favourite OT.com poster mine is Frink

Undeniably the GOAT. Ady should prohibit everyone from watching ESB:R except for him. He deserves it. He deserves the world. 

 what is this I dont even

 devotion

 A love deeper than that which we will ever know.

What is your favourite OT.com poster mine is Frink

darth_ender said:

^This is darth_ender and I approve of this message.

But you'll never know....  :(

I'm with ya too (two).

I've been on a Star Wars audiobook kick at work lately, and I've been listening to Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy which I read years ago, and man is it some lazy writing. I hate that.

All the characters say are lines paraphrased or just pulled directly from the movies. And all the new characters are huge Mary-Sues. I've never rolled my eyes more while reading or listening to a book in my entire life. It's just lazy, hackey writing.

Well that makes sense because I saw Grant there, too.

I saw her at Celebration. It was weird.

That Han says "never tell me the odds" once, and suddenly every Corellian doesn't like to hear the odds.

And is also Han Solo to some degree.

none said:

Tit for Tat Too.

 I get it!

I wish companies would stop insulting the male intelligence by constantly plastering tits over items they're marketing.

Man, I didn't get the feeling that there was a big call for a return to the PT focus at Celebration... maybe I missed a lot of stuff.

PT remakes just aren't going to happen. Speculation is pointless.

I think the best we can hope for the PT is more or less what we're getting: marginalization.

It's never going to go away, and we'll have to live with aspects of it, some more obvious than others, but Disney doesn't seem to be going to great lengths to force prequelisms into their current content.

That doesn't mean they're going to great lengths to ignore the PT, either, and it's definitely acknowledged when it comes up, but they certainly aren't shoehorning references to the PT into every piece of content they produce now.

I agree that soon after the ST, the "numbered" saga films should end. Cameos and guest appearances are fine, but I feel that once the torch is passed to the new generation, the story we began with the original Star Wars has been told. But the good thing about having nine movies is that there are going to be a ton of stories to tell between and around them.

If we look at Rogue One, for instance, they're drawing from the opening crawl of Star Wars. Even just going through the crawls of the OT, there are at least two other big stories to be told there: the founding of Echo Base between SW and ESB and the search for Han Solo between ESB and ROTJ.

Beyond all of that, there are references to dozens of possible movies within the films themselves: the abandoned Rebel base on Dantooine, the bounty hunter on Ord Mantell, the Battle of Tanaab. I'm sure the Rogue One model for taking these references to build films from will be their main source until they run out of them.

But that's just stuff that's related to the films, there are thousands of potential stories in this huge galaxy. Wookiees, Mandalorians, Stormtroopers, Jedi, Sith, popular Legacy characters... the Cantina is full of potential stories. It'll be like the "Tails From..." books, I'm sure. It's all very exciting.

I think we can be somewhat reassured by the fact that Disney has been moving slowly but steadily away from the PT as a whole. Sure it's still there and they make no effort to hide it, but they certainly haven't been marketing it as much as they have the OT and ST.

I'm not sure how to feel about this as Boba has always been my favourite character, and obviously Lucas basically ruined him entirely with AOTC.

As it stands right now, in the new Ultimate Star Wars book (which is basically the spiritual successor to the old Star Wars Encyclopaedias and Guides to the Star Wars Universe), Boba Fett is officially stripped down to exactly everything we see in the films and The Clone Wars. People have been rudely touting this as the end of the retcon speculation, but I don't see why they would spoil the plot of a movie that's at least two years away at this point when they could just update the book later for a few more bucks; I mean, the book doesn't say anything about Rogue One or any of the major plot points about TFA, so why people think that just because it doesn't say that the name Boba Fett changed hands at least once between The Clone Wars and Empire doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I say that the speculation that the PT Boba and the OT Boba are different people is alive and well. This may just be me grasping at straws, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it didn't come out that way.

In the Clone Wars, Boba does become a decent bounty hunter by the time we see him in the series for the last time, but he still never dons the Mandalorian armour in any significant way. The helmet he uses is something totally different in fact. This may not actually mean anything, because the Untold Clone Wars panel at Celebration this year had rough footage of Boba and several other hunters fighting Dooku with Boba finally armoured up as we know him, but since the series never made it that far means that PT Boba hasn't ever worn the armour at this point, which leaves a lot of room for artistic interpretation for his film. Of course, by that time, Daniel Logan will still be at a good age for an origin story, so it's really still all up in the air.

I, too, would love to have a Man With No Name-type space western, like skyjedi said, but that will be very hard to do with an origin story where we already have knowledge of the kid from AOTC.

Looks incredible!

Looks great!

LexX said:

darth_ender said:

Not that this was ever portrayed in the films, but I find this picture of Generall Dodonna's capture and death by Vader even dumber, not to mention a cheap knock off.

 This was from a game but I can't remember which one. Was it Galactic Battlegrounds?

 Right you are!